


DEFCON ONE

by princessweirdo



Category: Original Work
Genre: Poetry, Poetry Dump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-31 01:11:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10888716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessweirdo/pseuds/princessweirdo
Summary: it gets bad before it gets betterAKA the first couple chapters are early worksI also own up to any problematic thinking and poems. They are there. I'm sorry. I'm a work in progress.all poems and media are mine. all rights reserved. please ask before using.





	1. 1/21/17: i'm always burning because of you

loving you burns me up inside  
and not the warm kind  
of fire that protects me  
no, the kind of fire  
that makes a wasteland of my  
ribcage, blood and ash  
and all i want  
is to go to Before You,  
Before I Let You In.

this is my fault  
and now i burn.  
it's a good thing it's winter.


	2. 4/4/17: hemorrhage

sometimes i wish i drank  
i see myself pour wine  
into a cup as round as the sun  
the berry juice cascades  
and slips into the chalice  
and i imagine the drink  
would coat my throat, warm  
and sticky, like honey  
and sometimes, i envision  
what it would be like to  
swim at the bottom of the  
blood-red pool, to giggle  
and bubble like a rock, sinking. 

\---

sometimes i wish i would forget  
or stop or pause  
just for a moment  
and take a drink  
because then i'd have an excuse, right?

but you see, alcohol is never an excuse  
in fact, it just makes us stupid,  
brings out the worst in us  
makes good people violent  
and loose and their brains  
fuzzy and incompetent 

and so i guess  
if i'm already fucking up this bad  
i should be glad that  
i'm stone cold sober  
right?


	3. 4/10/17: crucified

there are cities   
in the bags under my eyes  
i think that if i   
press my fingers there  
i'll find blood  
and the reasons why   
i can't sleep at night  
on my fingertips  
and if i press my   
bloody finger to my tongue   
accusations would spill   
from my lips like   
blood from vicious  
bites, and i'd have my   
pound of flesh for  
everything you'd done to me. 

but nothing stings more  
than my eyes as they stare,  
rubbing against the ceiling, harsh,   
and the dry cement hurts   
like the truth that  
revenge is not penance 

there are cities   
in the bags under my eyes  
i keep building skyscrapers  
to deify my mistakes   
and i spend my nights  
worshiping the sins i   
have committed, carving  
them into my lashes 

for every thought of you,   
the weight of my bags gets heavier  
with shame.


	4. 4/13/17: i got culture coming out of my ass

to all the brown girls  
who were told that their hips  
are too big, their waists too wide,  
their thighs too thunderous,  
their mouths too brazen to be loved  
by a brown boy--

fuck them and the culture   
they shove down our throats.   
the culture that lets brown boys  
pick apart girls with a knife

if parents can't design their babies at birth  
then husbands can't build their wives at marriage

you get who you get 

fuck them and the culture  
they build into your bones  
that places men on the shoulders of girls  
and tells the man that they are the   
ones that hold up a home

honey, men aren't built of stone  
but this culture presses my heart into a diamond

and i do what i can 

fuck them and the culture  
they work into your skin  
as their hands bend you over,  
and they strip you of your pride,  
and tell you, "Submit." 

well shit   
ain't that what they teach us in sunday school?   
be humble? be kind? be the first one to rise?

guess you must make sinners out of your sons then

fuck them and the culture

that makes you stronger, wiser, kinder  
because in order to fight it  
you sow beauty in your wake,  
and stand uncalloused in your battles,  
and hold out a hand   
so that you may say:

This is what it means to be a girl.


	5. 5/5/17: tell me class how did this passage make you feel

we paint pictures to carry  
in our wallets, mix pills to swallow  
and throw glitter in the air  
to blur the lines between reality  
and wishful thinking. 

packing rhymes into   
easy imagery, condensing the galaxy,   
the universe into accessible symbolism.  
it's mass production.   
makes shit easier to swallow if our rapist--  
the monster covered in anti-semitism,  
anti-black, anti-muslim, anti-lgbtq  
anti-humanity--  
is likened to a shadow,  
diluted and obscure, glued to our  
heels, unseparable   
rather than a picture of

your brother, her girlfriend,   
our mother, the kind clerk   
at the cornerstore,   
the black body on the concrete,  
the brown man behind bars,   
the police officer on the other side  
who just did his job,   
the jury who only followed the law 

that's why we think  
god is a black woman.   
another lullaby, another wishful lament  
that the power we seek refuge in  
is an image of those we wronged  
to forgive us for our crimes  
against humanity 

we can't associate ourselves  
with the bodies and the criminals,  
can't put ourselves on the stand  
but we beg for judgement  
an acquittal


	6. 5/12/17: DEFCON ONE

trigger-happy child,  
with clouds in her head  
and storms pouring out of her mouth--  
you're hunkered down,  
erecting sunny smiles and   
tunneling wispy laugh lines   
along the horizon of your face. 

action-ready girl,   
you see the sun for what it is   
so you melt your wings and  
make ribboned shackles  
to bind you to the ground  
and hide them in the  
pockets under your eyes. 

your laugh is an armory,  
a pistol cocked and loaded;  
your happiness, a trench pit,   
waiting for the bodies to fall.

no one will ever know  
what you're afraid of.

(yourself)

**Author's Note:**

> all poems and media are mine. all rights reserved. please ask before using.


End file.
